March

I wish this book were only history and not at all relevant to today. Fifty years ago John Lewis lead peaceful, nonviolent protests to raise awareness of injustice to people who were illegally prevented from registering to vote. These people faced overt racism and brutality from law enforcement. People of color were killed for daring to insist on equal treatment.

This series of graphic novels have brought to life these events from the past. Lewis has an opportunity to vent anger for what happened to people if color. I think he addressed there oppressors with grace while showing the reality of the anger, hatred, and ugliness of racism.

Let us live to understand those whose experience is different from ours. Let us listen to understand those who have a different perspective. Let us look to lift each other up rather than push each other down. Let us live the reality of God's love in our lives that sees all people of all races, cultures, and ideologies as children God doesn't want to live without.

I needed to read this now. Right now, July 2020, while Nazi thugs kidnap and beat civilians in Portland and soon other cities, with war looming and despair so close at hand. I needed to read it because I'm furious, and these books stoked that anger, fueled it so hard I was gritting my teeth... but they did more than that: they taught me. Re-taught, perhaps, because it's something I already knew and know but just need reminding sometimes: nonviolence can work. Has worked. I feel humbled by Lewis and his cohort: what incredible, lovely people. What a beautifully narrated and illustrated story.

It's hard to read a book where those you consider Your People act in disappointing ways. It makes you cry. It makes you scream. It inspires you to follow the lead of the Others. It makes you want to buy copies of the book and give books out to all of Your People, even your Uncle Gene, at Thanksgiving, and then lead a discussion about the story at Christmas.

I am so glad I read March. Having been born right in the middle of the time period it covers, and not too far away, I knew nothing of what was going on, and I never really learned the details as well as I should. These events were not anything I would have learned about in history class, as they were much too recent, but I always felt I should just know about it, so I never bothered doing any real reading. I was raised around people who talked and believed just like the more vile white people presented in the clear drawings of these books, and I also knew white people who had marched and protested and prayed and written letters and dreamed of a non-segregated future. So March was a bit like going back to my childhood, including some of the uglier aspects.

“The coloreds were better off when we took care of them. They liked being slaves.” “It's just not natural sitting next to a nigra. If God had meant for us to be near them, he wouldn't have put them all in Africa to begin with.” “You know what they want to do? They want our women!” I heard parents of friends say things like that. I would go home and ask my mother to clarify. She never forbade me from associating with the kids, but she made sure I knew that their parents were full of something unwholesome.

Lewis and his two associates have produced a great reminder for those who maybe have forgotten, and an excellent history lesson for younger folk who never did know just how terrible things were. I know that white people can sometimes get tired of “Black Lives Matter” and “uppiter blacks,” but March makes it impossible to ignore the reality that things are the way they are now because of how things were sixty years ago, and how they were 100 or 300 years ago. The past is still with us, and the only way to get beyond it is to know the truth and strive to make things better.

Short Review: This is really a single story, so splitting the review to the different volumes does not make much sense, although all could be read independently if you wanted to. The first volume is clearly an introduction and primarily focuses on the lunch counter integration in Nashville and John Lewis' early life and introduction to the civil rights movement. Books 2 and 3 are progressively longer and tell a much broader history of the movement while telling Lewis' own story.

There is an ongoing connection of the story with John Lewis' attendance at the 2008 Presidential Inauguration of Barak Obama. That juxtaposition is a brilliant story telling method. The graphic novel format really works for this story. I have read a couple of other history books told via graphic novel. And I like the format generally, but March is a particularly good example of how a visual story telling method can be used to great effect.

My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/march-2-3/